Although first post here, have been an avid reader for past 2 months while trying to decide re: kiddos Xmas gift. As benefited a lot from posts here, think could give back a little. I was quickly sold on AAO as saw a unit on Fry's and was very impressed with keyboard size. However, decided to look into Asus, MSI and HP as well. However, the more I researched, more inclined towards AAO and HP's 2133. Finally took the plunge and bought 1 AAO150 120GB XP, and ordered a similar 2nd one a couple of days later. Being Xmas presents, just been using for 1 day, but so far very impressed. a) Keyboard: Nice size, very comfortable to type. Wife, who's non-techie, praised it thus a good sign. Space key seems to be a little hard in one of the units. b) Touchpad: Quickly got into the side button arrangement. I expected to be a hard experience given some threads, but so far OK. Likely to be paired with a wireless mouse while @ home. c) Fan: Maybe I'm lucky, Acer took care of it, or I'm less sensitive to noise, but have yet to hear it. d) Screen: Nice size & resolution. Could use 1" extra screen height, would give a try to the firefox add-ons/toolbars documented in posts. e) Temperature: Another great point. Kiddos spent all day with the AAOs in their laps and no complaint/burn. I have had it ~6 hours so far, and a slight heat, but can be withstand. f) Battery life: Have 3 cell model and haven't timed, but by various posts seems ~2-2.5hrs tops and I'm pretty close. g) Start-up: A screamer, both on boot and shutdown. Granted, they're still light in terms of apps/services, but beat my work laptop by a good 2 mins either way. Both AAOs were updated today to latest f/w, as well as MSFT XP & Office (between both ~30 files & 110MB). Already printing on remote AiO, as well as accessing networked HDDs Also able to see the 2 Macs @ home. Still pending for upcoming days : a) Connect to 15" LCD, shared via a 2 port KVM. b) Connect to local printer (likely to be shared too). c) Test belkin wireless mice. d) Install anti-virus. Most likely will give a try to AVG, as in my experience NAV does slow down machines. e) Get cases. Soft ones provided offer no protection. Yesterday got the Belkin vertical for Eee PC @ Target, but too small. Today ordered Case Logic's verticals, which should fit per AAO size and caselogic's site. Hopefully will be ableto report continued success in upcoming days. As many have reported, some 120GB badged units ship with a 160GB HDD instead. This was the case in 1 of my units, which also featured the Lite-On webcam. Other unit got 120GB HDD and the Suyin webcam. Needless to say, kiddos (12 yr) are very happy . Spent all day playing with AAOs, tweaking desktop (eg wall paper, etc), loading iTunes and updating profiles and MSN.
